President John Dramani Mahama has ordered an immediate investigation into the operations of the National Service Authority after the discovery of 81,885 suspected ghost names on its payroll.
The National Investigations Bureau (NIB) has been tasked with uncovering how these fraudulent entries were created under the previous NPP administration.
The fraudulent names were uncovered during a recent headcount of active National Service personnel, initiated by the Minister for Finance as a prerequisite for clearing outstanding allowance arrears dating back to August 2024.
The exercise revealed that while the previous management of the Authority had presented 180,030 names for payment, only 98,145 were verified as actual personnel.
Following the headcount, the Ministry of Finance released GHS 226,019,224 to cover the allowance arrears of legitimate service personnel. This means that over 81,000 names were fictitious entries, potentially costing the state hundreds of millions in fraudulent payments.
In response, President Mahama has directed the new leadership of the Authority to implement urgent reforms to prevent a recurrence of such fraudulent activities. He emphasized the need for stronger controls and accountability mechanisms to safeguard public funds.
Here are the 4 high-profile corruption cases Ken Ofori-Atta is wanted for
